Kerry former crew mate stumps in Johnstown

October 01, 2004|By SANDY WOJCIK, Daily American Correspondent

The crowd was mixed, the young and old, veterans, business people and homemakers, who made a point to stop at the Senior Activity Center in Johnstown to hear Retired Navy Capt. Wade Sanders talked about his fellow swift boat crew member, Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate.

Sanders, who was the undersecretary of the Navy under President Clinton, said in an interview prior to the presentation, that he has been traveling the country to talk to people about how Kerry feels about the issues facing our country.

"John cares about education, the environment, health care and knows how to deal with foreign policy and security."

He said that he had heard the media is giving Kerry a 60-40 win over President George W. Bush in the presidential debate held on Thursday night.

"This was something that Bush needed to do", he said about winning the debate. He said that the Bush's campaign is all about terrorism and the war and the first debate concerning this topic, "was his to lose and John to gain."

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A Mineral Point woman, who lost her husband 15 years ago, a Vietnam War veteran, was one of the first people to take a seat at the roundtable discussion.

She said Kerry would make the "the right kind of president. I don't know how anyone could be a president and not serve in the (active) military. You need to know exactly what it is all about."

John Hugya, John Murtha's chief of staff, a Korean War Veteran and a Vietnam era veteran, introduced Sanders. He told the audience that he has always admired the Navy Seals and the swift boat leaders, which John Kerry was.

"Seventy-five percent of those who served on the swift boats were wounded or killed, yet the majority of them would volunteer to go back."

Sanders said that the opposition is using John Kerry's Vietnam background against him. "John never said he was proud of his silver star, he never talked about his silver star, or his bronze star. He never wanted to talk about his purple hearts, which is essentially being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was the other side that was terrified of having a debate on substitute issues, as you saw last night."

This is why Sanders said he thinks the Bush campaign started to degrade Kerry's war record, as a "character assassination."

One of the veterans at the discussion asked about the ads on television sponsored by those who also served on the swift boats.

"I wouldn't call them swift boat Veterans for truth but swift boat Veterans for Bush," he said. Explaining much of the hatred for Kerry by these vets, on the campaign ad, came not from serving with him, but from what Kerry wrote in his book about his experiences in Vietnam. "There are only 18 of them who have showed their faces, not the 250 they claim. Many of those contacted never gave permission to have their names associated with them and totally discredit the ads."

Why are the ads being allowed to run on the television, asked a World War II veteran "Because of the First Amendment of the United States." Sanders, an attorney, did say the Kerry campaign made a mistake by not responding immediately when his war record was being challenged.

"You only have a few hours to respond and John just hoped they would go away, which they didn't."

Sanders, who himself is 70 percent disabled, said the Bush campaign does not care about Veterans' rights. If they did, "veterans homes would not be closed down. The blinded, crippled and maimed would not be turned away from veterans hospitals." And the disabled veterans would not be seeing decreases in "their checks".

Another issue he touched on was that many of the families of those stationed in Iraq are buying the equipment necessary to fight the war.

"Under John Kerry, you would not have the members of the military buying their own equipment." He said that Kerry will sponsor a Military Bill Of Rights for the soldiers and their families.

About the Iraq War, Sanders said Bush should be ashamed of saying, "mission accomplished" since more than 800 have died since those words were spoken.

He encouraged everyone present to get at least 10 people to vote Democratic on election day.